Among liberal arts colleges, the College was ranked sixth for the highest pay for full professors. Swarthmore College was ranked first with an average salary of $105,000. Wellesley, Williams, Claremont McKenna and Pomona Colleges also preceded Amherst.
The institution with the highest pay for full professors was Harvard University with an average salary of $144.7 thousand. The report ranked Amherst as 58th among all institutions.
Amherst associate professors and assistant professors earn $67,000 and $58,000, respectively, according to the report.
According to President Tom Gerety, the College remains competitive among comparable institutions for faculty pay. "I do think the Board is committed, as I am, to be competitive at every level [of hiring]," he said.
"When last I paid attention to it, they were still competitive," said Professor of Biology David Ratner. "The [administration has been] working hard to keep Amherst in the ballpark and indeed toward the top of the field ... We will never catch up to Harvard and Yale, but [the administration here is] doing a good job."
"Every year the [Committee on Priorities and Resources] does a careful analysis of where Amherst falls in a 13-institution ranking and, yes we turn out to be very competitive in overall compensation," said Dean of the Faculty Lisa Raskin.
"The College is very upfront with providing information so professors here can readily compare [salaries] to other colleges," said Associate Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought Lawrence Douglas. "Based on this information I would say that the salaries here are pretty competitive."
There are a number of other variables which might influence the averages reported by The Chronicle.
"We have a senior faculty because of cycles of hiring," said Gerety explaining a factor that might pull up the average.
Some students at the College said they were surprised by the pay that professors received. "That's a lot of money, I would have guessed less," said Matt Wechter '06.
Deborah Hoshiko '03 guessed that full professors make around $50,000. "The [number] surprises me, I always thought people in the education field were underpaid. I knew professors made more, but I didn't think it was that much," she said.
However, one student said that she thought professors at the College should earn even more than the report indicated. "I don't really think this is what they deserve ... if they've worked for many years I think they deserve more," said Jane Fung '06.
The report also indicated that the rate of growth in faculty salaries over recent years has been slightly higher than that of the consumer price index, a commonly used measure of inflation.
The Chronicle report was originally released in April.